


Do You Love Me?

by saltymermaid



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, break up fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-05-18 12:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5927758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltymermaid/pseuds/saltymermaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Adrien?” She said finally. “Do…” Hesitation creeped at the edges of her voice. “Do you love me?”</p><p>His green eyes blinked in surprise. “Of course.”</p><p>“And Ladybug? Do you love Ladybug?”</p><p>“How could I not love my lady? You know I’d die for her, you.”</p><p>He corrected his slip up quickly, but Marinette noticed. She had picked up on the stutter between ‘her’ and ‘you’, the stutter signifying to her that in his mind, her and Ladybug aren’t quite the same person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The classic tale of something that started as a one shot and turned into a multichapter fic

“Table for two, please?” Her boyfriend’s smooth voice rolled around in her head, mixing in with her muddled thoughts as he placed a request to the bored teenage girl standing behind the waitress stand.

“Follow me.”

Adrien grabbed Marinette’s hand as they followed the girl's clicking stilettos to a table in the corner of the sleepy cafe.

Marinette tried to live in the moment, she really did. As much as she wanted to focus on the beautiful boy sitting right in front of her with a menu in front of his nose, and how much she loved him, she found herself constantly distracted by her thoughts.

Thoughts about how Adrien now held her hand looser than he had ever held Ladybug’s, and how he lessened his flirtation with her as Chat once they had discovered his identity. Half formed memories of stiff laughter and awkward kisses oozed through the cracks in the wall of certainty she was trying to construct. And one moment stood out in her mind above the rest as it railed against her attempts to push it away.

The first time she had de-transformed in front of him.

It played on repeat in her memory, over and over and over again in a vicious loop. Yet no many how many times she replayed the instant in her mind, she still found herself unable to read the expression in his eyes.

She feared it was disappointment.

“Mari?” Adrien called out for her, his words paired with a gentle smile. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m okay.”

“You can tell me anything, you know,” he reached across the table to tip her chin up. “Anything.”

She nodded, turning away from him. His hand fell back into his lap, and they returned to their uncomfortable silence.

“Adrien?” She said finally. “Do…” Hesitation creeped at the edges of her voice. “Do you love me?”

His green eyes blinked in surprise. “Of course.”

“And Ladybug? Do you love Ladybug?”

“How could I not love my lady? You know I’d die for her, you.”

He corrected his slip up quickly, but Marinette noticed. She had picked up on the stutter between ‘her’ and ‘you’, the stutter signifying to her that in his mind, her and Ladybug aren’t quite the same person.

Lately, Marinette had been noticing a lot of things like that.

She sucked in a deep breath to calm her fluttering nerves. “I think we need to break up.”

Adrien’s eyebrows knitted together, and his mouth opened and shut and opened again. He seemed to be in shock. After a moment of struggle, a single word managed to make it past his lips. “Why?”

A dull ache began to rise in Marinette’s throat, but she pushed it aside. She had told herself he wouldn’t let him see her cry. “I think…that you don’t really love _me_.”

“Marinette, I-”

“Please,” she cut him off with a shake of her head, “please, just let me say this.” Marinette met Adrien’s broken gaze. “Adrien, I love you. I love you more than I knew was humanly possible. But I think that you love Ladybug. _Just_ Ladybug. And, if you hadn’t noticed, Marinette isn’t quite as cool as Ladybug.” Her lip began to quiver, but she forced herself to go on. “You signed up for a hero, you signed up for Ladybug, and you just got Marinette. I can’t do that to you, Adrien. I can’t.”

He slumped back in his chair, seeming to be at a loss for words.

“No, don’t say anything.” She stood up and pushed in her chair, and threw a twenty on the table. “Here, this should cover lunch and tip. Thank you for everything, Adrien. I’m sorry I’m not the Ladybug you thought I was.”

Quickly, she strode over to him and pressed a kiss to his cheek for a final time before jogging out of the cafe.

She didn’t start to cry until she got outside, and she didn’t stop until much later that night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The otp breaks up pt 2 with even more feels: Ladynoir version

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally done! I'm probably going to wrap this up with a chapter three so that everything is tied up neatly. I will say tht this fic is super fun to write, because I love me some light angst. I hope you enjoy!

Marinette still didn’t know how she was supposed to feel.

She felt a lot of things. Bitter, angry, sad, lost, confused, and sick. But she wasn’t sure how long any of these feelings were going to stick, or why she felt them at all.  _ She _ was the one dumped  _ him, _ she shouldn’t be the one who’s broken up over it. Some small part of her mind told her it was for the better, that it’s in her best interest for her to move on. But her heart stubbornly clung to her love for Adrien, and reminded her how good it felt to call him hers.

She had successfully avoided him for the past few days, making sure to never make eye contact during class and cutting conversation down to a minimum the one mission they had. She knew that she couldn’t go on like this forever. He was her partner, after all, at some point, she would need to meet his gaze without tearing up. She chided herself everytime she shriveled away from his touch, yet she knew that if she looked into his eyes again, if she let his hand fall on the small of her back, she would fall apart.

She had given too much of herself to him, and it was taking far too long for her to take it back.

Marinette was overwhelmed by feeling  _ so much _ . There was no off switch to her emotions, even though all she wanted was a rest.

That day had been particularly trying. Alya had confronted her about the details of her breakup, and she could only choke out three words before the faucet behind her eyes began leaking anew. Alya had simply sighed, pulled out a tissue, and squeezed Marinette around her middle as she cried into her hair.

On days like these, Marinette would stay out for as long as possible as Ladybug. Away from the bed on which Adrien had sat, away from the school where she had seen him for the first time, away from the phone which still had him as a favorite contact. As Ladybug, she was able to find something resembling peace as she soared from rooftop to rooftop, the cold sting of the wind chasing the tears out of her eyes.

Which is why when she heard his footsteps behind her, she felt incredibly violated. This had been her space, her rooftop. He was everywhere else, his ghost in her room, her classes, her dreams, yet this rooftop had been a safe place for her, the one place of her world he hadn’t touched. And now, as she heard the click of his boots and the whirr of his twirling tail cutting through the air, she felt raw all over again.

He sat down next to her with a sigh, settling in as he looked up at the sky. Chat Noir always had the ability to be comfortable in any situation. She used to find it appealing.

She had never hated it more.

For a while, he was quiet, almost as if he knew saying anything would break her yet again. So he sat, staring at the stars, leaning far closer to her than she thought was necessary, the sound of his breath mixing with hers and his body heat hanging onto her mind.

When Ladybug finally spoke, her voice was steady and distant, all of her pain hidden underneath a clam, spotted exterior.

“Why are you here?” The accusation was implied in her voice, and Chat shifted away slightly, seeming to sense her discomfort.

“I always visit you on your Saturday patrol.” His voice was quiet, as if speaking too loudly would scare her away.

“You can’t anymore.” Ladybug pushed herself off up, beginning to walk away. His hand wrapped around her wrist, freezing her muscles and making her heart quiver.

“Why?” Chat almost seemed hurt. “Why can’t I see my lady?”

At the pet name, Ladybug ripped out of his grip. “I’m not ‘your lady’ anymore, Chat Noir. I broke up with you. Please, just leave me alone.” Her tone was filled with icicles that cut him to his core.

She reached for her yoyo, and he saw her intention to flee in her step. In desperation, he called out the one thing he knew would force her to stay. “I love you!”

His words echoed over the street, returning to his ears garish and distorted. Oh, how cruel he was, to say the words she had desired to hear more than she desired to breathe once it was too late. Only a selfish man would do this to a person, yet there they were, his arm extended towards her with a dramatic sweep, pinning her down with three simple words.

‘I love you.’

Eight letters, three syllables, three words, one phrase. Such small words, words that fall out of your mouth with a single breath. Words this size don’t usually have power. Yet this phrase does. This phrase has the ability to blur the line between reality and dreams, to break down barriers and create new words. ‘I love you’ is the most powerful thing a person can say.

Yet he said it so easily. He said it as if it were the ultimate truth, as if nothing in the world could counter his love for her.

But he doesn’t even know her.

Ladybug turns, slowly, her joints creaking under the weight of her inner turmoil. She looks up at him, her eyes brimming with tears, meeting his gaze for the first time since that day in the cafe.

“No. No, you don’t.”

“I do,” he insisted, “I love everything about you…”

He trailed off as he saw her begin shaking her head, slowly at first, then rapidly, covering her ears with frustration.

She was fighting with herself, to keep it all in, to be strong, cool, collected.

She shook her head and covered her ears to block out what her heart knew to be a lie. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to feel. This was supposed to be a safe place, a numb place, and he came and ripped apart her dam brick by brick.

“How dare you.” Her voice was a whisper. “How  _ dare _ you.” Anger flooded her mind, her veins tingling with blind rage. “How dare you do this to me. How dare you draw me in so close, take so much of me, and refuse to give it back. How dare you act as if you know me. How dare you say you love me. How dare you be so thoughtless and throw words around so carelessly that mean so, so much.”

“Ladybug, I-”

“No!” This time, it was her voice that stopped him in his tracks. “I am not Ladybug. I am Marinette. I am Marinette and I am clumsy and stubborn and scared and I am  _ beautiful _ . I am not Ladybug because I am so much more than that. I have dreams and nightmares and burdens and victories. I am a  _ person _ .” She locks her jaw as she continues. “The person you are in love with doesn’t exist. You love a mask. You love a phantom. Ladybug was never real, Adrien. Not the Ladybug you created. The one with the clever quips and bright ideas and sunny disposition. She isn’t me. She’s part of me. I am so, so much more than what you’ve simplified me to. And if you can’t see that,” her breath catches in her throat, but she presses on. “If you can’t see that, then I have no desire to keep you in my life.”

His laughter was unexpected, but it buzzed in her ears with a hollow sound. “You’re one to talk.”

“Excuse me?”

“You fell in ‘love’ with Adrien Agreste, a pretty boy wearing pretty clothes on a pretty poster. You don’t know me either.”

Before she was aware of what she was doing, her legs propelled her forward, and she was jabbing her finger into his chest. “You can’t say that,” she hissed, “because I tried. God, did I try. I worked so damn hard for you to let me in, and you never did. I wanted to know the real you, Adrien, and you still kept me at arm's length. I don’t know why, and I may never know, but I do know it’s not my fault.”

Ladybug shoved him away from her, and began walking towards the edge of the building, taking her yoyo off of it’s belt.

“Oh yeah?” He called out, panic rising in him. Panic at the thought of her leaving him alone with what he’s done. “If you tried so hard, then what’s my favorite color?”

For a moment, she stopped moving. “The magazines always say it’s blue,” her voice is soft, but it traveled to him without her turning her back, “but I know it’s green. It’s the color of your mother’s eyes, after all.”

He was startled at her words. “How did you…”

“I’ve seen pictures. And I know how much you miss her.” She turned back to him, her gaze piercing. “Your turn.”

He combed his mind for any bit of information, anything that could help him figure out Marinette’s favorite color, and was shocked to find mental file cabinets with nothing in them.

“Uh,” he said shakily, “red?”

He could see her shoulders rise and fall in a chuckle. “That’s what everyone seems to think Ladybug’s favorite color is. Unfortunately for you, Marinette has always preferred purple.”

Before he could say anything else, she flicked her wrist and attached her yoyo to a nearby pole, giving him one more small, sad look before swinging away.

He stood alone on the rooftop. Some knew him as Adrien, some as Chat Noir. But he knew what he really was.

He was cruel. For as he stood there and the sunset, he knew he still had the shards of Ladybug’s heart,  _ Marinette’s _ heart in his hands.

And he had no intention of giving it back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: Thank you all for your encouraging comments and kudos and bookmarks!! It really does mean the world to me.
> 
> PPS: I maaaay have a new multichapter fic in the works, so keep your eyes out for that!
> 
> Come say hi to me on my tumblr, saltymermaid.tumblr.com!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The look inside Adrien's mind you've all been waiting so patiently for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my lovely friend Katie for editing! You're the best, honey!

Adrien felt nothing.

When his mother left them, his father went through a hurricane of of emotions. He was angry and sad, bitter and mournful, yearning and frustrated, and, on occasion, even relieved that she was gone.

Adrien knew he should feel some those feelings, any of them, yet he didn’t feel that way at all. Instead he felt numb. How could he feel that way? How could he just feel so empty? Was he that much of a monster?

Some part of his mind told him that he should be crying, or screaming, or releasing his pain in some way. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. There was no pain to release. Just empty.

No, he realized, not empty. Indifferent. He was simply filled with indifference to this situation.

Yet another reaction he did not understand. How is it he was indifferent to this? He had just lost the love of his life, and yet he was entirely unaffected.

The love of his life.

Ladybug’s words, no,  _ Marinette’s _ words had been playing on repeat in his head, a constantly rewinding cassette tape with no relief in sight.

No matter how indifferent he may feel, his mind was still trapped on that rooftop, watching her shake in rage as she jabbed her thin finger into his chest.

He looked down at his hands, the hands that he knew were far from the empty they seemed. To any passer by, he would look like a loon, delicately holding something in his hands that wasn’t there at all. But he knew. He knew what he held. He knew that it was unique and valuable and oh so fragile.

As he rolled the invisible shards of Marinette’s heart over his palms, looking at all of the puzzle pieces from different angles and allowing them to catch the light in different places, he was struck by how unfamiliar it was.

He claimed she was the love of his life, but this heart was one that was unfamiliar to him. It didn’t have any of the airiness he had expected it to have, or any of the smooth edges. Instead, it had the weight of unspoken struggles and was full of jagged edges that looked as if they would cut his fingertips. It wasn’t clear and see through at all, but cloudy with experience and betrayal. Rather than the coolness he had expected it to have, it was warm, and bloody in a way that stained his fingertips. And the heart, the beautiful, pure red heart he had expected to beat inside of Ladybug’s chest, wasn’t beautiful and pure red at all. It was pockmarked, and damaged.

And purple.

He sighed as he let his hands fall into his lap, his mind’s eye imagining the pieces tinkling down with them.

It was irony in its truest form, really. He had thought himself so incredibly lucky, that not only had he known who Ladybug was beyond the mask, but that she liked him too, loved him, even.

He should’ve known better than to think that a black cat like him could have good luck.

As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he’d always known that the Ladybug he loved wasn’t real. It was a thought that would flit across his mind in the wee hours of the morning, when he was alone and vulnerable. Every time the thought had arisen in his mind, he had shoved it away, locked it away in some distant dresser drawer to deal with another time.

That time had come.

As he stood there, alone in his room, staring at the shards that no one else could see, he realized what he was doing. How selfish he was being.

He had no right to Ladybug’s heart. She was right when she accused him of loving a ghost. Him trying to find the Ladybug he created would be like chasing a phantom, reaching desperately for the whisper of a spirit that was long dead, and never really lived in the first place.

He wanted to love Ladybug. But he was tired of loving a ghost. The Ladybug he imagined was never real, and running after a fantasy was exhausting. He was tired. He wanted a break from this constant back and forth.

He wanted to love someone who was real.

He wanted to love someone who he could see laugh a genuine laugh, who would let him see the dirty spots of their heart, who would teach him how to touch their jagged edges without cutting himself. Yes, he wanted to love someone who was real, someone he could touch.

He wanted to love Marinette.

He didn’t- yet. How could he love someone he hardly knew? And he wasn’t blind enough to not realize that she had spoken the truth. He didn’t know her at all. If he had known her, he wouldn’t feel this cold indifference. He would feel pain.

The thought drew a bitter laugh out of him. What a masochist he must’ve sounded like, longing to feel pain. But anything, anything at all was better than this indifference.

And even if he was left abandoned and broken on the sidewalk when she wiped her hands clean of him, at least he would feel something. At least he could say he tried.

At least he would have known her.

Adrien didn’t want his fingers to just barely brush the hands of a ghost. He was sick of reaching out and finding nonexistent palms. He was ready to love someone real. And he was willing to earn it. He was not fool enough to think that loving Marinette would be easy. He was sure that the road to romance would be filled with ups and downs and awkward divots, flying highs and sagging lows. But he was willing to take it. Whatever it took, he was willing.

He would put in the work it took.

For Marinette.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooow that was a doozy to write. Sorry for the shortness of this chapter, and for how long it took for me to publish. it just really was really draining chapter for me.
> 
> I'm working on chapter four, the final chapter now!
> 
> Thank you for all of your guy's encouraging feedback! It truly means the world to me.
> 
> Wanna chat? Got some fic requests? Stop by my tumblr (saltymermaid.tumblr.com) and let me know!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last. Chapter. Sorry for the wait! Hopefully, this gives y'all some closure. Honestly, it is far from my best work, and I'm really sorry about that. After five rewrites of this chapter, this was the best it got, and I figured something was better than nothing.

She hated this cafe. 

Marinette had tried to give it a chance, she really had. She didn’t want her one negative experience here to cast a shadow over everything the little food place had to offer. After all, it wasn’t the management's fault that she had broken up with who she thought was the love of her life in this very building, in this very seat.

At that thought, she stood up, and moved seats.

But it wasn’t even that, really, her train of thought continued once she was settled in a seat across the cafe from her previous one. It was that the food here was too expensive, the lighting too dim and the portions too small. It’s that everything here had a salty grime to it, and she couldn’t find one sweet dish on the menu. To top it all off, there was hardly a speck of color in sight.

She should have known that it would be like this. Adrien had mentioned at one point that this had been the cafe his father always brought his mother too. It made sense that a man as dreary as Gabriel Agreste would be a regular at a cafe as dreary as this one.

The first time he had brought her here, Marinette thought that it was sweet. That he wanted to share with her the same place that his father had shared with his mother. She had thought that maybe he truly believed that they were soulmates, like his parents had then.

Then she had learned that his parents had shared a loveless marriage and had been at each other's throats until the day Ms. Agreste had walked out and never looked back.

The gesture became much less sweet, actually, and she realized that the bitterness she tasted each time she came here wasn’t just from the food.

Usually, it would bother her that he was late. It had bothered her while they were dating. Always some photo shoot, some signing, something other than her. Something always made him late, and today was no different. For once, she was happy he was late. It gave her time to think, to gather her resolve. She needed to prepare herself and steel her mind so that she didn’t melt the instant she looked into his green eyes.

The bell on the door didn’t tingle when Adrien threw the door open, rather, it shrieked. It seemed just as startled as Marinette was that it had been disturbed, the clapper hitting the metal walls of it’s body in surprise as her hand flew to her throat.

Her motion caught his attention, and his head snapped towards her. With long, quick steps he rapidly approached the table. He was fixated on her in a gaze that was almost cat like in nature, a focus in his eye that she had never seen before, and wondered if she would ever see again.

His chair squeaked in angry protest as it was pulled across the floor, and she could feel her cheeks burning as every eye in the cafe turned to them. In a fluid motion, he sat down, reached across the table, and took her hand into his own.

“Adri-”

“No,” he said, his voice firm but gentle, “before you say anything, I need a minute. I know I’ve hurt you, I know I’ve been a total dick. In all honesty, I don’t deserve any of your time. But I’m asking for it anyways. One minute, Marinette. Please. That’s all I need.”

Wide eyed and breathless, she nodded, and he began his speech.

“I, uh, I wrote down what I wanted to say, but I left my notes in the car, so please, bear with me.” He took in a deep breath, seeming to steel his nerves. “I want to love you. I want to love you so badly. I want you to be my sun and moon and stars.” He bit his bottom lip as he stared into her eyes. “But I can’t.”

At that, Marinette felt what remained of her heart shatter. Yes, she knew it was illogical, but still, some part of her had hoped that they would work it out. He was her partner, after all. He knew how she operated. Or how Ladybug operated anyways.

She had hoped that maybe, he would want to work it out. If not for her, then for Ladybug. It wasn’t healthy or logical thinking, but whenever it came Adrien, all sense of logic seemed to leave her.

But he didn’t want that.

Perhaps she had made the right choice in breaking up with him after all.

She opened her mouth to speak, to move to leave, to do something, but he cut her off once more.

“I still have thirty seconds.”

He took her silence for permission, and continued. “I can’t love you because I don’t know you. And I don’t know you because you’re right, I haven’t tried. That’s unfair. You deserve someone who knows you inside and out, Marinette, someone who can know what you’re thinking with a single glance. And I’m not that guy.” He swallowed, hard. “But I really want to love you, and I really, really want to be that guy. So I’m asking, no, actually, I’m begging you to let me back into your life. Not as a lover, but as a friend. Because you, Marinette Dupain Cheng, are the best friend anyone could ask for.”

Shaking, she retracted her hand from his, and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “You really want to be my...my friend?”

He shook his head vigorously, his bangs flopping with the up and down movement. “More than anything in the world.”

“And you don’t want to be lovers?”

His hands twitched, and he looked guilty, as if he had been caught in the act of something. “Honestly, I want to be your lover more than I want anything else in life. But,” he rushed to say before she could stop him in his tracks, “I want to be friends first. And from there?” He shrugged. “We’ll see.”

As she leaned back in her seat, he leaned forward, and extended his arm to her, his fist closed, poised for their signature fist bump. “So, what do you say?” He asked, his voice hopeful. “Friends?”

Lightly, she touched her knuckles to his. “Of course.”

A look of relief flooded his face, as if he thought that she would say no.

“Alright,” he said as a smile split his cheeks. “Cool.”

“Cool?” She asked teasingly, cocking an eyebrow.

“Uh, well, honestly, I hadn’t thought this far ahead.”

She laughed at his blush, a good, hearty laugh, a warmth filling her chest that she hadn’t felt since she last ran out of this very cafe. He joined in, his chuckle sounding like a melody that she had long missed.

“Well,” she said as she regained her breath, “let’s start getting to know each other.”

“Well, I know your favorite color is violet.” He said, once more reaching for her hand. “So tell me more.”

“I hate this cafe.” She blurted, then instantly covered her mouth with her palm as her cheeks flushed.

Adrien snorted, and leaned back in his chair, looking around. “Me too, actually.” Once more, his chair scraped across hardwood as he stood. “Shall we go someplace else. I’ve heard of this really cute bakery downtown. Rumor has it that Ladybug lives there,” he said with a wink.

“Yeah,” she grinned, “let’s go.”

Together, they exited the cafe, walking too far apart for lovers and too close together for friends. With that, the door that Marinette had once walked through broken hearted became the door under which her heart began to become whole once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Thank y'all for sticking around for this loooooong awaited update.
> 
> Now, what will I be doing in the future, you ask? Well, keep a look out for 'Colors', an Adrienette multichapter fic that I am very excited to publish. And, if any of y'all happen to be fans of Haikyuu!! I have a fic coming out for that soon entitled 'The Most Beautiful Man in the World.'
> 
> As always, if you wanna chat about anything Miraculous, you can find me at saltymermaid.tumblr.com!


End file.
